


with my own blood in my mouth

by lunavagant



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Book 2: The Wicked King, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, F/M, Hanahaki Disease
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:48:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26588386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunavagant/pseuds/lunavagant
Summary: “It’s beautiful, though, don’t you think? In a tragic sort of way,” Taryn had said on the way home that day. “To love someone so desperately it kills you.”
Relationships: Jude Duarte/Cardan Greenbriar
Comments: 23
Kudos: 84
Collections: Darkest Night 2020





	with my own blood in my mouth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liesmyth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/gifts).



There was a fairy in a ballad with flowers in her mouth.

There was a fairy in a ballad who fell in hopeless love with a mortal who despised her, and still her love grew and coiled and blossomed inside her. It filled up her chest first, and her lungs, and then rose all the way to the back of her throat and up and up and _up_ , spilling from her lips all over the ground whenever she spoke, until one day she choked on it and died.

In one of the books from our childhood in Elfhame — a beautiful, handwritten tome full of images as vivid as a window into yet another world of magic — there used to be a picture of the fairy from that story. She was reaching for her lover’s turned back, blood-soaked petals falling from her open mouth, her other hand clutching her throat. I remember Taryn found it beautiful, kept asking for Tatterfell to open the book to that page again and again. I remember scoffing at it theatrically every time, partly out of genuine annoyance and partly out of the ingrained instinct to make fun of my sister.

Once, during one of our classes, back when my main concern was still keeping my temper in check in the face of Cardan’s taunting, we had studied poisons. Even then, before the Shadow Court, before Dain and the slow, methodical way in which I had taken to poisoning myself every night in the months that followed, the lesson had fascinated me.

Blusher mushroom, wraithberry, deathsweet, everapple.

A shiver still runs down my spine every time I taste the soft, overripe paste of fairy fruit, somewhere in between sweetish and rotten, awaking memories I’d much rather stay buried.

One of my classmates had asked, during that lesson, about the bleeding heartache and the poison that caused it, and our professor for the day, an old, stern-looking fey with strikingly pale eyes and hair that was still pitch black in spite of her obvious age, had shook her head with a small smile. Earlier on she had reprimanded Cardan in a clipped, impatient tone for whispering something to Nicasia, and with that single act had instantly won my respect and my full attention.

The bleeding heartache, she explained, was an extremely rare illness, and one that did not arise from any poison — and while there was disagreement on whether it might be triggered by a curse, its true origin was likely to remain unknown. It was unpredictable in its progress and intensity, and could last from decades to a handful of months before turning deadly. The only consistent symptom was a painful, persistent cough, which in the advanced stages of the illness came along with clots of blood and matted flower petals. With time, they would make it impossible for the person to eat or speak, and, ultimately, to breathe.

“It’s beautiful, though, don’t you think? In a tragic sort of way,” Taryn had said on the way home that day. “To love someone so desperately it kills you.”

“That’s not really what happens, though. It’s not being in love that kills you, it’s loving someone who doesn’t want you — which is just stupid, if you ask me.” It didn't make much sense in my mind back then, the idea of letting yourself fall in unrequited love. Surely, if being in love was making you so miserable it became a sickness, it would not be worth it to stay in love when there were other things to live for. “Besides, the professor said it’s most likely a curse. So it might not even _be_ real love.”

Taryn had huffed at me and pouted the rest of the way, mumbling about how annoying my act was. I’d been too distracted for a rebuttal, my mind still focused on the unsettling picture our teacher had painted in describing the feeling of choking on wet leaves and your own blood.

The memory is far from my mind as I excuse myself from Lord Roiben’s side and make my way out of the throne room as discreetly as I can manage. As careful as I try to be, I still spot Balekin’s eyes following me with intent. I doubt he has seen Cardan since the day of my release, and he most likely still believes me to be glamoured. As far as he knows, this is my first night being able to enter the palace. I wonder if he thinks I’m on my way to murdering Cardan right now, or if he thinks I have already, and that is the reason for my summons and the explanation behind the High King’s absence.

I keep my face studiously blank until I am sure I am out of his sight. The last thing I need is Balekin setting in motion whatever back-up plan he has in place in the event of my failure to poison his brother before I can figure out his next move and anticipate it.

The lights in the corridor shimmer as we walk past, the fireflies inside the lamps buzzing to life. I fist my hands in my skirts, lifting them up to keep them from getting in the way, matching the brisk strides of the guard who was sent to summon me.

The past day has gone by in a blur — since leaving Cardan’s rooms I have been frantically trying to figure out how to counter the schemes of half a dozen, equally dangerous enemies. Not even an hour ago, a blueish-skinned fairy in a mask of colorful leaves swirled behind me in the throne room and slipped a piece of paper into my hand — a message from the Roach.

He hadn’t been able to find Grimsen.

It stands to reason that something else would go wrong tonight, really.

My breath quickens just from matching the guard’s pace, and I curse inwardly at the stiffness of my limbs, the deep, traitorous weakness that I can feel in my every step after an endless month in the Undersea.

I have no idea what to expect when I walk through the thick wooden doors, leaving my escort behind to fall in line with the rest of the High King’s personal guard. I do not know what could be keeping Cardan from his guests at a time like this, but I doubt that I will like what I find.

The Bomb is there when I walk into the antechamber, and I allow myself a moment of relief before I see the dark look in her eyes.

“What’s going on?”

She tilts her head toward Cardan’s rooms. “There’s something you should see.”

I find Cardan haunched over the side of the bed, elbows resting on his knees, coughing into his cupped hands in harsh, dry bursts that sound almost painful.

“Cardan?” I ask, reaching for him before I can think better of it. I lean over him, take in the redness of his eyes and the feverish feel of his skin. He makes a noise when my hand touches his forehead, something in between a rattle and a sigh, and his eyes flutter open.

The relief on his face is so strong it hits me like a punch.

“Was he poisoned?” I immediately ask, tilting his head so I can get a better look at his pupils and so that I can disguise the way I’ve mindlessly moved to brush my thumb over his cheekbone in silent reassurance.

The Bomb shakes her head. She hands me a crumpled handkerchief, and I quickly unfold it. Inside is a handful of dark, wet flowers. I turn to her, lips parting around a question, but suddenly Cardan is coughing again, louder this time, his hand covering his mouth, and when he lowers it I can see the redness dripping from between his fingers. A clot of blood, and in it, petals.

I pause, horrified and uncomprehending, until something clicks inside my brain and it suddenly all makes a horrible, twisted kind of sense.

The coughing. The reddened skin around Cardan’s eyes making him look like he’s been crying. The specks of blood I’d noticed on his pillows when I sneaked into this very room last night.

I stare blankly at the blood-soaked flowers in my hand and try to remember the name of the ballad, but the memory of it is faint like a dream.

“Is this…?”

I can’t finish my sentence, my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.

For a fraction of a moment, I’m waiting for the Bomb to tell me that there is a different explanation. Maybe it is poison after all. Maybe any second now Cardan will simply throw his head back and laugh, and this will all have been some twisted practical fairy joke made at my expense.

None of that happens, of course. Because none of this is anything other than what it looks like, and all I’m left with is the sound of logs crackling in the fireplace behind me and the sight of dark blood dripping from Cardan’s hands. Everything else — my father and Balekin and my debt to Lord Roiben — suddenly feels so distant it might as well belong to another life.

“Give us a moment.”

The Bomb hesitates, but when I don’t turn to look at her again, she straightens and turns away, walking soundlessly out of the room.

I have one of the servants fetch us some tea, and stand in a corner mixing it with honey as Cardan rinses his mouth with mint and water. He takes the cup gratefully when I hand it to him. I watch him sip it in silence, still holding the cloth the Bomb handed to me, my mind racing.

I ask myself how I could have possibly missed something like this, racking my brain for signs I might have ignored, wrapped up as I was in protecting Cardan from a thousand other threats.

I wonder how long the Bomb has known. She didn’t seem shocked at the sight of the flowers, and I have to fight a hot pang of anger at the thought that she might have kept this from me. Then again, she is sworn to Cardan — perhaps he didn’t give her a choice until tonight.

I push all of my questions to the back of my mind and try to remember everything I know about the bleeding heartache. The illness comes to those who harbor feelings that are unwelcome or unrequited, and causes wild vines to grow inside a person’s lungs and crawl up their airways, clogging them and tearing at the skin, causing the bloody cough. Eventually, it cuts off the airflow completely. I’m suddenly struck by the image of Cardan with his hands around his throat, bloodied green branches growing out of his mouth, eyes wide and frantic as he looks at me, and I have to turn my back and repress a shudder. 

As far as I can remember, the vines will only stop growing if the feelings are returned, or once death has severed the connection causing the illness.

The type of flower is also thought by some to be a symbolic representation of the person’s loved one. Staring at my hand, I think I recognise the plant I’m looking at, but I see no clues in it — it’s a moonflower, symbolizing love in vain and mortality, an almost cruel joke for someone who, by all rights, was born to live forever.

If Cardan is in love— well. He can’t marry, not that that would cure him if this woman doesn’t love him back. And I can’t let him die.

Which doesn’t leave me many other options.

I crumple the cloth in my hand, walking over to the fireplace and quickly disposing of its contents by throwing it into the flames.

“How long?” I ask sharply, turning around to face Cardan.

He stares back at me. “I don’t follow.”

“I’m not a fool, Cardan.”

“You are many things, Jude. Some of them rather unpleasant,” Cardan says. “A fool is not one of them.”

His voice is strained, and I wonder if, even after the tea and honey, speaking out loud is painful for him. I wonder how long it has been the case.

“You’re sick,” I say, and I hate that my own voice doesn’t come out as steady as I’d planned.

“Is that an accusation?”

Cardan’s smile is sharp as a knife, but his eyes are dull as he looks at me. I am suddenly reminded of the way he so often uses his malice as a shield. I think of the unguarded relief on his face when he saw me earlier, and my heart clenches in my chest.

“How long has it been?” I ask again.

“Are you commanding me to answer?”

It doesn’t really matter how long — whether it’s been months or even years, whether it happened while I was being held prisoner in the Undersea. It doesn’t even matter who she is. None of it matters but how far this has gotten, and I already know the answer to that is _too far_.

And yet I still desperately want to know, anger and helplessness and a strange grief mounting inside me, making me taste acrid bile in the back of my throat.

Cardan is dying, and somewhere underneath the shock and fear I am almost shaking with jealousy at the thought of the woman who has done this. The woman Cardan is in love with. 

I shake my head.

“Then I don’t think I will.”

“The Bomb knew,” I say, not expecting an answer. “Who else?”

“I haven’t been parading this around the Court, if that’s what worries you.”

“Who else, Cardan?”

He hangs his head, grimacing. “No one else.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I wonder if he knows the options I am weighting in my mind as we speak. I hope he doesn’t ask.

“Would that have changed anything?”

“Cardan, this is... you are going to _die_ if I don’t—“ I cut myself off, not trusting myself to continue without betraying my own thoughts. “If I don’t fix it.”

“Yes, that would be inconvenient, wouldn’t it? My death.” Cardan’s voice has a toneless quality to it, and he’s not meeting my eyes. It makes me want to scream at him. “I suppose the timing isn’t right.”

I open my mouth to speak, not knowing if what will fall from my lips will be an angry remark or some sort of pathetic confession, but Cardan begins to rise before I can say anything at all.

“Well, we might as well discuss my impending doom later,” he says, cracking a smile in my direction. It’s a better attempt than the first one, but it still doesn’t reach his eyes. My chest hurts with the thought of how many of these same smiles I have probably scoffed at and ignored in the past six months. “I think Lord Roiben has been waiting long enough, don’t you?”

**Author's Note:**

> The flowers Cardan is coughing up are _Ipomoea alba_ , a type of white, night-blooming morning glories which according to google are a symbol of love that is unrequited and of mortality, something which is specifically a human trait in TFotA. Make of that what you will.


End file.
